dirty politics

So the Labor party made an obvious choice in this election campaign to go dirty, early. They have been running a very negative campaign against the Liberals since day one. This campaign has not only continued, but it has actually gotten dirtier since then, broadening to include the Greens as well.

This is all very well, they're obviously desperate to stay in office and doing everything they can to achieve that.

I personally thought that the campaign would backfire on them, with the contrast between negative Labor ads and positive Liberal ads showing up the differences between the two parties. However, in the last week the Labor party have been pushing heavily their ad about the Liberals "preferring a road to a hospital" and letting down the state when it comes to health.

I believe that these ads have the potential to be really significant in the community. Why?

My grade 9 classes have been doing some polling as part of our SOSE course, asking people about the election. Results from last Thursday came in almost identical to the results from the Sunday Examiner EMRS poll, showing pretty clearly 1 vote each for Greens, Labor and Liberal, with the remaining two seats carved up somehow between the big two, possibly both to Liberal but probably one each. On the important issues, the biggest (far and away) was health, with well over twice as many people worried about health over education, itself 4 times more important than the next issue, the pulp mill.

Other polls we've done since then back up the importance of the health issue, it is far and away the most important issue raised when people are asked.

Not only that, but classes that have gone out this week (today and yesterday) are showing a marked decline for Liberal and Greens with votes going back to Labor. The undecided vote has also dropped.

While it's impossible to be certain based off a small poll in one town, I have to say that the health/midlands highway issue is resonating and could potentially turn things around for the Government.

If it does it will give the green light to ultra-negative campaigning nation wide, which doesn't sound fun. Guess we'll just have to see what happens.

On a side note, if you go to my first link, which is a Labor website pretending to be a Liberals website but bagging out Liberal policies, you will see they attack the Liberals because their Midlands Highway proposal isn't serious or feasible or costed. Yet in their TV ads they're attacking the Libs because it is! Hypocrisy, thy name is desperation....

:)

Two days to go!

More election news

So the Labor Party in Tasmania have gone dirty. Early and hard as well. They're really laying the boots in hoping to scare people with a negative campaign. At the same time they're spending money like there's no tomorrow (which for them, there isn't).

Interesting news.

The latest EMRS poll (with a tiny dataset admittedly) has a consistent Green vote statewide of around 23% with 40% in Denison. Given the upward Green trend in Denison theres a real possibility of 2 seats there. That means that there's a real possibility of David Bartlett losing is seat! Ken Sturgess has the bogan vote sewn up and Lisa Singh has the greenie/swearing at media/hard left Labor vote sewn up (apparently) so Bartlett might be on his arse. In fact looking at the numbers (off a tiny dataset as said) Labor could be looking at only 7 seats. More likely is 9 seats, with a hung parliament.

Pollywaffle. Apparently when asked on radio whether it was an attack on Polley and Llewellyn she replied "no, and Rene Hidding"! Not "no, it's an attack on Rene Hidding" but AND Rene Hidding!

Also, Bartlett announced yesterday or the day before $3million dollars for the Simplot factory in Ulverstone. He then claimed that thanks to that money Simplot would be staying. Except of course, that Simplot had already announced that a) they were staying and b)they'd committed to spend 17 or 18 million dollars of their own money in the factory anyway.

When Bartlett turned up and announced money for a project (money they hadnt asked for and don't know what exactly it's meant to be for) and then claimed credit for stopping Simplot from going offshore, apparently an awful lot of people there were quite angry.

Anyway, fascinating times.

Things to think about: This is Paul O'Hallorans best (and last) chance to win a seat in Braddon for the Greens. Polling shows that he's a strong chance but he has almost no personal vote, so it's still a mystery

Lots of people are going to be voting Green this election (anecdotally), but they're not Labor supporters. Look to see a lot more Green preferences flow to the Liberals than normal.

Compare and contrast he Labor attack ads with the Liberal candidate ads (haven't seen any Labor candidate ads in Braddon). The contrast is massive and I think there would have to be some positive resonance in the electorate.

Labor are in panic mode, except the dirty campaign to get even dirtier!

Harry out